Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Yankee Dime

The Final FrontierWeird capitalist Richard Branson, who already runs an airline, a music store chain, and lord knows what all, is planning to invest in a reusable space ship that will take tourists into orbit for around a hundred grand a pop. Will shuffleboard be available? Mr. Branson is not saying.

The Penultimate FrontierBurt Rutan, spaceship designer, saw his vessel reach an altitude of 64 miles above the Mojave Desert this week, making it the first private manned aircraft to reach space.

Rutan hopes to get the Ansari X Prize, which will be given to the first vessel that safely completes two flights, at an altitude of 62 miles, within two weeks. The prize is ten million bucks, which would about cover cocktails for two in the Van Allen Belt.

That’s right, I’m from Texas. The Lone Star Iconoclast, the weekly newspaper in President Bush’s hometown of Crawford Texas has endorsed John Kerry for President.

Among other reasons for not endorsing President Bush, its editorial mentioned “his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.”

That is so five minutes ago….Reuters tells me that the Encarta Webster’s Dictionary now includes “9/11,” with two definitions: one the attack itself, and the other a generic term for any terrorist attack in which a lot of innocent people are murdered. It also includes “September 10th,” an adjective meaning “ so petty, shallow, or outmoded as to be irrelevant."

The final final frontier, really.William Shatner went to Captain Kirk’s hometown of Riverside, Iowa, supposedly to shoot a lame science fiction movie. But after a week of shooting with local residents, he revealed that it was all a prank for a new reality show on the highly respected cable station for guys, Spike TV. "Everything in front of and behind the cameras was faked," Shatner told the townspeople. "The only thing that was real is the love we have for Riverside." Awww. I guess.

Yankee DimeThis is Texas slang, apparently (I read it in the Lone Star Iconoclast!) for an insincere kiss. President Bush sure knows how to spend those.

Odd to see a genuine comment among all the robo-spammers. I'm interested in why "yankee dime" would be considered an ordinary kiss in the south, since "yankee" seems to be generally a pejorative in the south. And a dime isn't much money.